Gilberto Gil

The Bahian singer and songwriter who co-founded Tropicália, wrote his way through prison and exile, brought Africa into Brazilian pop on Refavela, and later served as Brazil's Minister of Culture.

Origin
Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Years active
1962-present
Genres
MPB, Tropicália, samba, baião, afoxé, reggae
Labels
Philips, Phonogram, WEA, Universal

Bahia

Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira was born in Salvador, Bahia, on 26 June 1942, the son of a doctor and a primary school teacher, and grew up in Ituaçu, in the Bahian interior. At nine he moved to Salvador with his sister and took accordion lessons. Hearing João Gilberto turned him to the guitar and bossa nova, and in high school he formed his first band, Os Desafinados. He studied business administration at the Universidade da Bahia from 1961, began writing jingles in 1962, and met Caetano Veloso at the university in 1963.

In January 1965 he moved to São Paulo for a job at Gessy Lever, then quit to live from music. Procissão became his first single on a major label, Elis Regina recorded his Louvação, and the television show O Fino da Bossa widened his audience in 1966. His debut album, Louvação, came out in May 1967. That October, Domingo no Parque, played with Os Mutantes, took second place at TV Record's III Festival de Música Popular Brasileira.

Tropicália and exile

In February 1968 a newspaper column by Nelson Motta gave the Tropicália movement its name. That year brought Gil's second album and the collective manifesto Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis, which Rolling Stone Brasil later ranked the second greatest Brazilian record. At the end of December 1968, after the AI-5 decree, Gil and Caetano were arrested in São Paulo and held in army barracks in Rio, the first week in solitary confinement. At the Deodoro barracks a sergeant lent Gil a guitar, and he wrote three songs for his next album there.

Released on Ash Wednesday 1969 and confined to Salvador until July, he made his third album, Gilberto Gil, singing and playing guitar in Salvador while Rogério Duprat recorded the band in Rio and São Paulo. Its last addition, Aquele Abraço, a farewell to Rio, became his first major hit. Two farewell shows with Caetano at the Teatro Castro Alves in July, later released as Barra 69, paid for the journey to London. In exile there he heard reggae, played alongside Yes, Pink Floyd and the Incredible String Band, appeared at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival and made an English-language album in 1971.

Refazenda, Refavela, Realce

He came home in January 1972 and made Expresso 2222. In Salvador he found the afoxé Filhos de Gandhy, a carnival group founded by dockworkers, reduced to about forty members. He paraded with it, wrote the song Filhos de Gandhi, and is credited with reviving it to around ten thousand. Refazenda (1975), which he called a juxtaposition of nonsenses celebrating nature and his Northeastern roots, began a trilogy. The same year he recorded Gil & Jorge with Jorge Ben, and in 1976 he joined Caetano, Gal Costa and Maria Bethânia as the Doces Bárbaros. That July he was arrested in Florianópolis for marijuana possession and ordered to treatment, the story behind his song Sandra.

Early in 1977 he spent a month in Lagos at FESTAC 77, the second World Festival of Black Arts and Culture, and met Fela Kuti. Refavela, shaped by afrobeat, juju, funk, reggae and Salvador's blocos, ended with the afoxé song Patuscada de Gandhi. He toured with Rita Lee, played the Montreux Jazz Festival on 14 July 1978, and closed the trilogy with Realce in 1979, the year of Nightingale, recorded in Los Angeles with Sérgio Mendes producing.

Minister and elder

Luar (1981) was the first of many albums produced by Liminha, and he played Rock in Rio in 1985. He entered politics as president of the Fundação Gregório de Mattos in 1987 and as a Salvador city councillor from 1989 to 1993, joining the Partido Verde in 1990. Quanta Gente Veio Ver won a Grammy in 1999, and Eletracústico won another. From 2003 to 2008 he was Lula's Minister of Culture, where he championed flexible copyright and released some songs for free. In 2005 he became the first Latin American to win the Polar Music Prize, and in 2021 he was elected to the Academia Brasileira de Letras.

After a serious illness in 2016 he made OK OK OK (2018), which won a Latin Grammy. He closed his 2023 farewell to London at the Royal Albert Hall with Aquele Abraço, and the same song ended the last show of his Tempo Rei farewell tour, at Allianz Parque in São Paulo on 28 March 2026. He has kept playing selected dates since, from the Roundhouse in London to Umbria Jazz in Perugia.

Records

Songs

Caetano Veloso, Os Mutantes, Gal Costa, Jorge Ben, Fela Kuti

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Sources

  1. Gilberto Gil, Wikipedia
  2. Gilberto Gil, Wikipédia
  3. Gil: Prison and Exile, Instituto Gilberto Gil, Google Arts & Culture
  4. Gilberto Gil's discography, Instituto Gilberto Gil, Google Arts & Culture
  5. Brazilian Minister of Counter-Culture: Gilberto Gil, PopMatters (2007)
  6. Gilberto Gil realiza último show da turnê, CNN Brasil
  7. Discografia, Gilberto Gil